[Thoughts] I guess the Ashlands will become a short visit biome eventually

[Draconis]

Well, it's that time of my playthrough again - Ashlands.

And somehow it's different this time.
I used to have lengthy struggles to even get a foothold.
But this time I did it rather structured and methodical and suddenly it's really quick.

First the portal, stonecutter, shield generator and a cleared spot. Which proves to be the hardest part actually.

Then a small bunker of black marle, a moat, earth wall and there is a relative quiet around the bridgehead.

Then a small round of exploration, finding nearby ruins with all the plants I need for cooking. And the first ashvine seeds.

Planted the seeds next to a few ruins near my base (a black forest stone tower looks good with the red vines), harvested clusters and more seeds, transformed an old copper pit into a vineberry garden.

Dug a few pits, some to trap charred warriors and marksmen in, and one for the asksvin to tame them. Tamed Asksvin and brought eggs home. Got lucky later and found a starred one that I could harpoon and drag into the pit. Meanwhile built a pen for them at home.

Thanks to the bog witch I don't need flametal for the best health and stamina foods as these are now made at the food preparation table without any cauldron level requirement.... (I'm still not sure if that was intended or a big oversight)

Prepared with good food, good mead, plenty of supplies and the will to conquer I start looking for molten cores, find them soon, find a fort with four flametal pillars nearby. Built up a ladder and platform structure right along the walls, had some fun seeing the mobs on the wall pushing each other into the spikes.
They even pushed their warlocks down, so I could kill them without having to deal with the rest of the pack.
Went home, drank ratatoskr and lightfoot, jumped up my ladders, over the wall, outran the charred until the spawner was unguarded, destroyed it, same with the second spawner. kited the rest, escaped from the fortress if necessary and eventually it was cleared. The first flamemetal from the two chests went straight into a battering ram to open the central door.
I ended up with about 43 flametal, a bloodstone and a jade from the 3 chests. Which is not actually much.
Another 50-is each from each of the first two pillars I mined (mining them from top to bottom with the queen's power after I dug a hole nearby to again trap the warriors and marksmen so they don't respawn while I mine). Maybe I was just lucky, but none of the two sunk and I could bring in all of the ore. Troll strength mead was a huge help here.

Well, and here I am... Level 4 mistwalker feeling good enough for most parts of the biome. Full flametal armor set crafted and upgraded to 3, full ask set level 3, embla set not yet done but staff of the wild and staff of fracturing built and tried them a bit and not sure if I really want to use magic this time or if that will be my backup plan in case I'll have to recover both my armor sets.
Nidhoegg and Splitnir built (I'm sword, spear and shield this time), but didn't have the gems to improve them yet. (Mind I only found a bloodstone for the gem cutter and a jade for the staff).
Oh, and not to forget the ashen cape an level 3, that was one of my first thintgs, along with the ashwood shield (which I also forgot to mention).

And now... well, there is not that much feeling of progression at the moment. I will do the remaining two pillars and then look for mor fortresses as I need more bell framents and more gems. But that might already do to have a thundering nidhoegg and the splitnir.... well, I don't think I'll use that much in the ashlands. It's for my home base mainly which is in the black forest this time and thus visited by trolls regularly. So a spear at home is a good idea. But I don't feel like I need gems for it, so maybe I'll just keep it plain physical. Or lightning, that contributes to stagger and stagger is good for lox hunting (yes, I still hunt lox from time to time to stock up on plains feasts)

But pretty much that's it. I have no motivation to get that unique sword yet because... well, the amount of fire damage is disappointing. I would actually rather like to see it split up like the damage on the mistwalker (you know, with the larger elemental damage portion). This would make it less effective in the ashlands, but hey - it would actually feel like I can do some meaningful preparation for the deep north where I assume that fire might be a good idea.

But let's get back to the initial thought. This all took a few evenings of playtime. And maybe two or three more until I'm as prepared as I can be to challenge fader. And then... goodbye Ashlands.

There was more to do in the mistlands I guess. More to discover, more to learn, more to do and build. While Ashlands is a bit like "establish a foothold and then go marauding".
Okay, that's actually what the plains were to, but with a bit of logistics (you cannot teleport all that blackmetal in that age) and a farm.
But for Ashlands... as soon as you found your way to deal with the battles, it can be pretty short. For me that way was two parts: Learning the combat (yes, I know, that's just a "git god" to myself, but to be honest: It boils down to that or at least makes a real difference) and giving the pit+harpoon approach a try to have some peace where I mine, chop and build.

I still have a bit of a bad conscience about the dvergr I pushed into the warror-pit... but hey, he was about to trigger respawns by shooting them from above.

So it sums up like the mountains, sort of... once you know where to get your resources you are actually almost done. Rather quickly.
Or it feels shorter than it is.